1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to teaching and demonstration systems and more particularly to systems for teaching and demonstrating how to learn such subjects as music, spelling and reading.
2. Description of the Related Art
A preliminary novelty search developed the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: Kitching 672,678; Whitman 1,043,652; Sledge 2,477,213; Wolfner 3,496,653; Lanaro 3,715,951, and Dechamps 4,366,637.
Lanaro discloses a music teaching aid in the form of a three-dimensional unit visually similar to the written presentation of a music score which can be physically manipulated by the music student or teacher in game-like fashion to generate the student's interest and facilitate the music learning process. The teaching aid includes notes in the form of movable resilient (nonmagnetic) spheres simulating note members. The spheres have slots which plug onto or in between parallel wires supported by a frame simulating a musical staff as presented in written sheet music. After placement on the wires the note member spheres can be shifted laterally. Other three-dimensional members simulate the appearance of clef members, note-identifying members, measure-indicating members, sharp and flat-indicating members and musical time-indicating members.
Lanaro's members can be supplied to the child and a request made, for example, by the teacher that the child place a note at the G position on the treble clef of the staff, first, perhaps, with the treble clef-identifying member and the note-identifying member in position, and later without such indicating members in position. Thus, through the playing of a game, which allows for the child's manipulation of the three-dimensional units, his or her interest is captured and the learning process proceeds. Because of the visual similarity between the three-dimensional teaching aid and that of the written musical score, Lanoro claims that the learning process is expedited.
With respect to the music-teaching system herein claimed, Lanaro's music teaching aid is the most pertinent of the patents developed by the search.
Also pertinent to the claimed system is Dechamps' set of advertising components, which consist of very flat magnetic characters simulating printing which attach to a metal sheet.
The remaining patents are also of interest. Wolfner discloses a book in which tiles representing animal shapes have embedded bar magnets which match the correspondingly-shaped recess on a panel with oppositely polarized magnets. Kitching discloses a device for teaching music in which notes have looped holding pieces which slip over strips of a background staff. Sledge discloses a musical educational appliance in which freely movable nonmagnetic blocks slide on a horizontal surface representing a staff. Whitman discloses a device for teaching fractional values.